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 Net2Phone Aligns Businesses for Profitability
Focus on high margin lines with global leadership position
NEWARK, N.J. - February 21, 2002 -- Net2Phone, Inc. (Nasdaq: NTOP),
the leading provider of Voice over IP (VoIP) services, today announced
that it has taken further steps to deliver on its strategy of growing
its high margin businesses that have and will continue to fuel its
leadership position in the global communications marketplace. Accordingly,
to place the company firmly on the path to profitability, unprofitable
businesses such as certain international wholesale services will
be scaled back and resources will be channeled towards its consumer
and enterprise communications services with a long-term emphasis
on broadband.
As a result, the company will reduce its staff by approximately
110 employees, or 28%. The company is working closely within its
family of companies, specifically IDT Corporation and Winstar, to
leverage mutually beneficial resources as well as provide employment
for some affected Net2Phone employees. To ensure continued growth
and innovation within the company, Net2Phone is engaged in the development
of a VoIP solution for broadband operators. Liberty Media, Net2Phone's
strategic partner and investor, is working with Net2Phone to deliver
cable telephony over IP networks, and resources and personnel remain
in place to deliver a viable solution.
Demand for Net2Phone's communications services internationally
continues to be strong in both the consumer and enterprise markets.
Over the past year, revenues from this division have grown by over
80% with gross margins in excess of 40%. Net2Phone is exploiting
its global brand recognition and innovative technology by signing
up distributors to sell its services to consumers and enterprises.
Hundreds of companies worldwide have already capitalized on the
benefits of easily deploying Net2Phone's VoIP services in their
regions, enabling them to become "mini-telcos" offering
highly competitive calling products in their respective languages
and currencies.
"Unlike others in the telecom industry, we are in the fortunate
position of being able to leverage our core competencies and strong
cash position to get to profitability and beyond," said Net2Phone
CEO Stephen Greenberg. "By leveraging our global brand and
extending our reach to end users in international markets, Net2Phone
is able to recognize high gross margins while avoiding much of the
pricing pressure associated with international arbitrage in the
wholesale industry. In addition, our long-term concentration on
enabling broadband operators with voice solutions can only be accretive
to our current business model."
Net2Phone has proven that it can deliver margins between two and
four times that of wholesale providers, who have been traditionally
focused on increasing revenues by growing low margin commodity businesses
with concentrated customer dependencies.
The company expects to take a restructuring charge, which includes
severance payments and related costs. Further details and guidance
will be given in the company's upcoming earnings conference call,
scheduled for Thursday, February 28, 2002.
ABOUT NET2PHONE:
Founded in 1995, Net2Phone is a leading provider of voice services
over IP networks to consumers, businesses and carriers worldwide.
With millions of users around the world, Net2Phone enables toll-quality
calls between computers, telephones, and broadband devices utilizing
IP networks. Recognized as the first company to bridge the Internet
with the public switched telephone network, Net2Phone has routed
billions of minutes of traffic over its award-winning network. Traded
on the NASDAQ under the symbol NTOP, Net2Phone's strategic partners
and investors include Liberty Media Corporation, AT&T Corporation,
AOL Time Warner Inc., and IDT Corporation. For more information
about Net2Phone's products and services, please visit www.net2phone.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the
meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended,
and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended.
These forward- looking statements involve risks and uncertainties
and actual results could differ materially from those discussed
in the forward-looking statements. For this purpose, any statements
contained in this press release that are not statements of historical
fact may be deemed to be forward-looking statements. Factors which
may affect the Company's results include, but are not limited to,
the Company's ability to expand its customer base, the Company's
ability to develop additional and leverage its existing distribution
channels for its products and solutions, dependence on strategic
and channel partners including their ability to distribute the Company's
products and meet or renew their financial commitments, the Company's
ability to address international markets, the effectiveness of the
Company's sales and marketing activities, the acceptance of the
Company's products in the marketplace, the timing and scope of deployments
of the Company's products by customers, fluctuations in customer
sales cycles, customers' ability to obtain additional funding, technical
difficulties with respect to the Company's products or products
in development, the need for ongoing product development in an environment
of rapid technological change, the emergence of new competitors
in the marketplace, the Company's ability to compete successfully
against established competitors with greater resources, the uncertainty
of future governmental regulation, the Company's ability to manage
growth, obtain patent protection, and obtain additional funds, general
economic conditions and other risks discussed in this Report and
in the Company's other filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission. All forward-looking statements and risk factors included
in this document are made as of the date hereof, based on information
available to the Company as of the date thereof, and the Company
assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statement or
risk factors.
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